The Odyssey Farm Journal

I just picked up two tons of feed which will take the pigs up to market weight.* After confusing and then impressing the feed mill’s forklift operator by putting ten bags in the cab to balance the weight between axles (“I guess you know your truck,” he said, shaking his head with a smile), I strapped the next pallet to the trailer and hit the road. Today’s farm workout: human forklift. Re-stack 1,000 lbs of bagged feed to make room in the feed room. Then carry and stack 4,000 lbs of feed (carry two bags at a time—half the trips). I unloaded the truck and trailer in an hour and refueled with two sloppy joes and an undisclosed number of homemade cookies. Not a bad morning. "Why not use bulk feed," the forklift guy asked. Bulk feed is easier if you do all your work with a tractor, but bags give me a certain flexibility. At this scale, I can carry two bags several hundred yards to the feeder more easily than I could get it out there with a tractor and wagon (If I even had a tractor) going through gates or with four buckets on the back of a 4-wheeler. For now, keeping it simple keeps me fit. I'm not finished. I need to pick up a trailer load of firewood that I cut along the lane last week--

*It’s a Non-GMO batch, which I’ll mix with the ton of organic feed I have remaining. Next month, when my open-pollinated corn is ripe, I’ll incorporate some of that into their feed as well.